Writers need to get educated on high school teachers' salaries
In your Sept. 11 issue, you published two letters to the editor by Cupertino residents who must not have students at our district high schools.
If they were better informed on the issues, they would have reached very different conclusions.
In the letter headlined "A 12 percent raise? Am I missing something?" Dale Straw states that Monta Vista teachers certainly didn't deserve a 12 percent raise unless they "had not had a recent wage increase."
Monta Vista teachers, as with all others in the Fremont Union High School District, have had approximately 5 percent total increases in wages over the last five years, while the cost of living has risen nearly 18 percent in that same time interval. Teachers are simply asking to maintain their position with respect to the economy.
R. Bowlby's letter titled "Teachers haven't earned a raise" is based on one set of national statistics suggesting that students are learning less than previously.
Monta Vista is a school which continues to grow in population because so many feel it offers a superior education, where 80 percent of the students take the SAT and score nearly 100 points above the national average in math, where 90 percent of the students enroll in four years of science classes even though only two years are required for graduation.
If R. Bowlby had looked at Monta Vista statistics, they would suggest that Monta Vista teachers deserve to be among the highest-paid in the country, and a raise of 27 percent would be much more in line with his argument.
Monta Vista and the other four schools in the district are recognized as California Distinguished Schools and/or National Blue Ribbon Schools.
Monta Vista was chosen by Vice President Al Gore as a school to visit because it exemplifies the best in education.
That still isn't why teachers deserve a raise.
Our district teachers do an outstanding job of educating the community's children, and they deserve a wage commensurate with the community which they serve.
I invite you to come visit Monta Vista and see what a quality school and a quality staff look like.
Barbara Minneti
Monta Vista High School teacher
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 25, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.